


There's No Need to be Brave

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Klok, Slight Canon Divergence, hospitalizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: Nathan has been stabbed. Nathan needs to figure out his next move.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion/Skwisgaar Skwigelf
Comments: 23
Kudos: 35





	There's No Need to be Brave

  
It’s been 20 minutes since Magnus left, and there’s still a knife in Nathan’s back.  
  
He’s perched at the very edge of the armchair’s cushion. Pickles and Murderface flank him like uneasy sentinels. Nathan’s hand hovers above the handle.  
  
“I’m gonna pull it out.”  
  
Pickles and Murderface shriek in unison.  
  
“No dood!” Pickles says. “Right naow yer body is like a big, shaken-up champagne bottle full’a _blood_ an’ **_th’ knife is th’ cork_**.” He pauses to take a few quick shallow puffs of his inhaler, and when he speaks again he wheezes: “ _Th’ knife is th’ cork_.”  
  
“ _Champagne Bottle Full of Blood_ is a pretty good song title,” Nathan muses.  
  
“Plusch if you take it out, there’sch a chance it could get all infected!” Murderface adds. “Did you know? When William McKinley wasch assaschinated? It _wasn’t_ the bullet that killed him! It wasch the _doctor_ trying to _dig out_ the bullet with hisch _grubby, unwasched, old-timey handsch!_ ”  
  
The phone rings and Pickles moves to answer it.  
  
“And **_THEN!_** ” Murderface continues. “When schome guy tried to assaschinate Teddy Roosevelt! He _remembered_ what happened to McKinley, scho he told the doctorsch to _leave the bullet in!_ He had a bullet in hisch chescht for the **_rescht of hisch life_** _!_ ”  
  
Pickles calls from the kitchen, “Enough with th’ Presidential Fun Facts!”  
  
“You **_KNOW_** I have to dischpence Preschidential Fun Factsch during periodsch of _high schtress_ **_schtop oppressching me!_** ”  
  
“If I pull it out, we can stop the blood with towels, right? We’ve got towels.” Nathan thinks for a moment. “We have **_a_** towel.”  
  
The phone crashes into the receiver.  
  
“Bad news,” Pickles says as he returns. “That was Ol’ Man Jenkins downstairs. He says heard th’,” he jabs out a pair of air quotes, “ ** _ruckus_** and called th’cahps.”  
  
Murderface brightens. “That’sch not scho bad! They can help usch schort thisch whole thing out!”  
  
Pickles scoffs in disgust.  
  
“Dood it’s _never_ good when cahps get involved, in any situation!”  
  
“If we tell them what happened they can find Magnusch and lock hisch assch up!”  
  
“I don’ want _that!_ ”  
  
“After what he did?!”  
  
“I don’ want that fer _anyone!_ ”  
  
A wave of nausea floods Nathan’s system. His hands lay in his lap like over-cooked, week-old steaks.   
  
“Scho you don’t care about _juschtice being scherved?_ ”  
  
“ **You ceen’t get justice from a broken system!** ”  
  
“ **_Picklesch I cannot have a measchured discusschion about the finer nuances of police and prison abolition with you right now, our work asschociate hasch been schtabbed_ ** .”  
  
“Hey quick question what does it feel like when you go into shock?”  
  
“Oh! Oh!” Murderface bounces on his heels and claps his hands for attention, though he already has everyone’s attention. “I have an idea! We schould call that guy!”  
  
“What guy?” Pickles asks.  
  
“You know, the businessch guy! He doesch businessch thingsch, for businessch reasonsch!”  
  
“Our _manager?_ ”  
  
Murderface pinches his chin with his thumb and index finger. “I want to schay hisch name is… _Cranschton Oggleschmort_ .”  
  
“That’s naht even in th’ _neighberhood_ of bein’ right.”  
  
“He can help usch talk to the cops!”  
  
“Uh-uh, no way. I do _naht_ cooperate with pigs.”  
  
“ **Have ye no reschpect for** **_due processch_ ** **?** ”  
  
“Heh, th’ only time I talk to cahps is when I’m tryin’ t’ get ‘em t’ quit their jahbs.”  
  
“ **_TIME! AND! PLACE! PICKLESCH!_ ** ”  
  
“We’re goingks to de hospitals.”  
  
The steady, robot-calm voice is a hard reset.  
  
In the aftermath of the attack, Skwisgaar wordlessly disappeared into the bedroom, but now he stands at the group’s center. A white backpack swings from the bend in his elbow. In three long steps he is at Nathan’s side.  
  
“Calls Offdensen and tells to him what happens,” he says. “Don’ts talk to de police untils he gets here.”  
  
Murderface chuckles knowingly. He raises his foot to rest on the chair’s armrest, plants his elbow into his thigh, and drops his chin onto his fist.  
  
“Not to worry, I’ll give that robot the **_FULL_ ** schcoop.”  
  
Pickles rolls his eyes. “And I’ll correct th’ many, _many_ discrehpancies between Murderface’s version’a events and reality. ”  
  
“ _Why I oughtta—_ ”  
  
“ **Afters you talks to Offdensen** .” Skwisgaar’s curtness shames Pickles and Murderface into standing up straight. “Calls Nathan’s parents. Tells to dem where we ams.”  
  
Nathan thinks _oh man my mom is going to be so pissed at me for getting stabbed_ before a black curtain draws across his vision. When Nathan’s sight returns he’s straddling the threshold of the apartment, held upright by Skwisgaar. August in Central Florida is swampy as a witch’s underboob but the hands that grip Nathan are ice cold.  
  
“Talks to Offdensen. Talks to Nathan’s parents. Talks to de cops. Does it ins dat orders.”  
  
Pickles and Murderface exchange a look.  
  
“Yoooooou got it, pal,” Murderface mumbles and gives a sheepish thumbs up.  
  
“Hey, uh, Skwis?” Pickles scratches the back of his calf with the toe of his sneaker. “Are ya—?”  
  
“I’ll lets you knows when dere’s an updates.”  
  
Nathan hears the door shut behind him. Nathan is halfway down the apartment complex stairs. Nathan is in the passenger seat of the junker sedan the four of them share. Nathan is having his seatbelt buckled by Skwisgaar. Nathan thinks _I can do that myself_ but for some reason Nathan is unable to do so.  
  
As he sets the backpack at Nathan’s feet something indecipherable slices across Skwisgaar’s face.  
  
“Cans you gives to me one seconds?” He asks, and closes the door before Nathan has a chance to answer.  
  
Skwisgaar is a bolt of white lightning in the middle of the pitch-black parking lot. Nathan watches him pace from one end of the rearview mirror to the other, shaking his hands out _hard_ until they are a boneless, formless blur. Nathan thinks _he better not pull something we have a gig on Tuesday.  
  
_ But then Nathan is on the highway. It’s misting; the windshield wipers make an obnoxious screech as they stutter across the glass. Skwisgaar has pulled his hair into a ponytail, and he is holding Nathan’s hand.  
  
“It’s goingks to bes okays,” he says.  
  
“Uhhhhhh yeah I know, dude,” Nathan hears himself saying. “I’m _fine._ ”  
  
Skwisgaar’s gaze clicks off the road. His face is placid. But behind his eyes Nathan sees a small animal held beneath the surface of a river, thrashing and desperate until it at last surrenders to absolute stillness.  
  
Nathan is at the hospital.

  
\---

  
The ER is slammed but Nathan is admitted immediately. Having an enormous knife sticking out of your back means you get to skip the line.  
  
He’s put up in a surgical staging area as they prep an OR. The wound is too deep to treat without surgery. A pretty nurse with kind brown eyes and a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose explains everything. Denise is her name. He’ll get light anesthesia, they need to check for internal damage, they’ll have a better idea of what they’re dealing with once they’re inside him. (Nathan thinks _I have a better way of getting you inside me. Wait. Fuck!_ ) Nathan remembers the medical soap operas his mom used to watch, and wonders if there is a designated supply closet where the hospital staff does their kissing, and wonders if Denise would accept his invitation to said closet.  
  
Denise hooks him up to an IV of...something...and thanks Nathan for his patience. She gives his shoulder a little squeeze. Nathan glances over at Skwisgaar, coiled up in the seat beside him, and pumps his eyebrows as if to say, _jealous_ ? Skwisgaar does not seem jealous. Skwisgaar also has not let go of his hand. It’s a little weird. But not weird enough to ask him to stop.  
  
The hospital gown sags limply across Nathan’s collar bone. A nurse who was _not_ Denise had to cut off his tank top to “better access the wound,” or whatever. The tattered remains are stuffed in a clear plastic bag, tucked beneath Nathan’s neatly folded jeans. He frowns at the pile.  
  
“I packed yous another ones,” Skwisgaar says, leaning into Nathan’s line of sight. “To wears home.”  
  
“Oh. Cool.”   
  
The ER’s chaos was overwhelming but the surgical staging area is unnervingly quiet. The room is wide and open, but divvied into private “sections” by hanging blue curtains. There are no windows, and the lights above the unoccupied beds are switched off. Someone three beds over listens to a video in Spanish. Denise’s laugh echoes from a point unknown. Skwisgaar’s thumb roves over Nathan’s knuckles.  
  
“ ** _RrrrrggggghhhhhhhHHHHHH_** I’m ** _bored_** ,” Nathan says. “I’m **_so_** bored! I never thought being stabbed would be so **_borrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnnng_**.”  
  
Skwisgaar hushes him.   
  
“I broughts your, uh, Bideo Mans? If you wants to plays dat?”  
  
Skwsisgaar tips forward to rut through the backpack and after a moment of searching he withdraws Nathan’s Game Boy. He slides his thumbnail beneath the _on_ switch, and the device illuminates with life.  
  
“Oh sick,” Nathan says as he accepts it. “What games did you bring?”  
  
Confusion clouds Skwisgaar’s features.  
  
“Uh.” He points to the cartridge in the slot. “De ones dat...ams already in dere?”  
  
The intro screen loads. _Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins_. Oh.  
  
“Oh.” He tries to cover his disappointment. He would have really preferred to play _Metroid_ , but this is fine. It’s fine. “Thanks.”  
  
The plunky 8-bit soundtrack floats between them. A moment passes. Nathan lifts their still-entwined hands and gives it a little shake.  
  
“Gonna need this back.”  
  
Skwisgaar flushes.  
  
“Ah.” He slips his hand free. “Sorries.”  
  
Nathan shrugs, which **_aaaAAAaaa_** big mistake. Moving your shoulders when one of those shoulders has a knife in it is, surprisingly, not a good idea. He sucks air through his teeth as he boots up his save file. It’s been a while since he played, but he remembered having more 1-UPs than this **oh** god **damn** it Murderface, how many times did Nathan tell him **not** to fuck around with his stuff? When he gets home he’s going to punch him right in the liver.  
  
The bed opposite them is ensconced in shadows ( _Ensconced in Shadows...halfway-decent lyric…maybe something there, come back to it later..._ ). Skwisgaar stares resolutely into the darkness, hands pressed between his thighs.  
  
Nathan clears his throat.  
  
“...Wanna watch me beat the Pumpkin Zone?”  
  
A faint smile crosses Skwisgaar’s lips, his first in hours, and something in Nathan’s chest does a stutter-step.  
  
The bed is a little too high and the chair is a little too low, so to see the screen Skwisgaar scooches his seat as close as possible, folds his legs underneath himself, and rests his cheek on Nathan’s bicep. The fluorescent lights give his hair a vaguely green tint, as though he spent the afternoon swimming in an over-chlorinated pool.  
  
“De waiting ams always feels likes de woirst part,” he says.  
  
“Psh, _tell_ me about it. **_AUGH_** fuckin’, cyclops, lost my fire flower…”  
  
Skwisgaar shifts against him, his fingers thrumming on Nathan’s forearm.  
  
“You waits so longs you t’inks, dere amn’ts anyt’ing woirse dan dis, de uncertainty. De unknown.” His voice flattens into a monotone. “You waits so longs you don’ts even _cares_ what happen after de waiting, you just want de waiting to be _done_.” He draws a shaky breath. But den de t’ing you been waiting for comes.”  
  
A strand falls loose from Skwisgaar’s ponytail. His hair is soft. It smells clean.  
  
“And you realize what a fool you was, for t’inkings dat a known misery could ever be betters dan all de unknowns dat preceded it.”  
  
Nathan has grown accustomed to Skwisgaar’s sporadic philosophic spirals. He’s gotten pretty good at parsing out their hidden, not-that-deep messages. But he doesn’t know what to make of that one.  
  
His on-screen avatar falls off a cliff and dies.  
  
“I’m _fine_ , you know that, right?” Nathan tilts his head and waits for Skwisgaar to meet his eye. “We’re gonna get this taken care of, and we’re gonna go home, and everything’s gonna go back to normal, alright?”  
  
An almost-white eyelash balances on Skwisgaar’s cheek catches the light and Nathan’s attention. With the nail of his middle finger, Nathan scoops it up and flicks it away.  
  
“So quit bringing the room down.”  
  
Skwisgaar snorts. His gaze falls on the console.  
  
“You sucks at dis game.”  
  
“ _Well_ next time I’m stabbed bring games I’m _good_ at!”  
  
The curtain swings open and there stands Denise. A fleet of orderlies behind her halo a gurney. Though she is wearing a mask Nathan can tell by the crinkle in the corners of her warm eyes that she’s smiling.  
  
“Great news, big guy! They’re ready for you!”  
  
A bolt of panic strikes Nathan the moment he touches the gurney. “Wait, what about my stuff?”  
  
“I will takes it,” Skwisgaar answers.  
  
He’s being wheeled out. “Oh shit, my _parents_ —”  
  
“I will finds dem.” Skwisgaar is walking alongside them, and he is holding his hand. “I will explains everyt’ings.”  
  
“Okay. Okay. Okay.”  
  
The gurney stops. Denise pivots to Skwisgaar and cocks her head apologetically.  
  
“This is as far as you can come, pal. There’s a waiting room down the hall.” She winks. “You’ll like it. The couches are _super_ comfy, and it’s got the _best_ vending machine in the whole hospital.”  
  
Skwisgaar nods numbly. He stares down at Nathan and smiles with teeth.  
  
“ _Okej?_ ”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Okays.” The muscles in his neck tense as he swallows. “I will be heres whens you comes back. Just.”  
  
The same look Skwisgaar gave him in the car—that sort of haunted familiarity—splashes across his face. But this time he wrestles it down, widens his smile, and tightens his grip.  
  
“Just comes back?”  
  
Nathan squeezes back, and though he knows in his gut that this is a moment when he should say something _meaningful_ and _memorable_ and _important_ , the only thing he can manage is, “ **Dude**.”  
  
The massive double doors at the foot of his gurney open like a blossom and they’re wheeling him out. As he rolls away Skwisgaar’s fingers map the whole continent of Nathan’s palm. The ends of their middle fingers hook, briefly, and fall away. Nathan wears the phantom touch like a glove, skin pulsing with the ache of absence. He glances back just as the automatic double doors slide shut, bisecting Skwisgaar’s stoic form clean down the middle. They turn a corner, and Skwisgaar is gone.  
  
“It’s sweet how much you and your friend care about each other,” Denise says.  
  
“He’s my bandmate,” Nathan replies, a touch too defensively. Then he turns to her and adds, with deadly seriousness: “You have to get me out of here by Tuesday. We have a gig.”  
  
He’s in a different room. Darker. Lots of bright overhead lights. The orderlies maneuver him onto a new bed, coax him into a seated position. A tray of sharp objects glimmers at his elbow.  
  
“That’s so cool that you’re in a band!” Denise’s voice is bright as someone fits him with a plastic mask that swallows his face. “What kind of music do you play?”  
  
“Death metal. But if you don’t like that we can play something else.”  
  
Denise’s laugh sounds like a thing that sounds pretty and good. He’s woozy, for some reason.  
  
“Before you get discharged you’ll have to give me an autograph,” Denise says. “When you’re famous I can sell it and pay off my student loans.”  
  
Nathan tries to tell Denise that even though he has no money he will pay all of her student loans right now. But darkness fills his chest and his throat and his brain. He hopes he’ll remember to tell her later.

  
\---  
  


When he’s in surgery, he dreams. Someone is laughing, and the laughter is warm. Joyous. Incredulous. Familiar. He doesn’t remember anything else.

  
\---

  
They took out his contacts before surgery so he can’t read the wall clock when he wakes up. But he can tell it’s day-ish from the stream of sunlight striping the end of his bed. He drops into the middle of a conversation between two voices he knows but can’t place, hushed but tense.  
  
 _“...when I get my hands on the son of a bitch that did this—”  
  
_ _“I assure you, it is being dealt with.”  
  
_ _“That’s my_ **_boy_ ** _.”  
  
_ _“I completely understand. I am handling the matter personally. I believe the best thing you can do now is, ah, focus on taking care of your son.”  
  
_ _No one has to take care of me, I can take care of myself, I’m_ **_fine_ ** _,_ is what Nathan tries to say. But what comes out of his mouth is “ **_SSSSSsssss’fine_ **.”  
  
He feels the energy of the room shift. Then a pair of arms are around his neck, and kisses are being smacked onto his cheeks and forehead, and the scent of the perfume his mom always wears fills his senses and oh no oh **_no_ ** his mom knows he got stabbed he’s going to be in so much trouble.  
  
“Oh my _baby_ ,” she cries. “My special little guy! I’m so glad you’re okay!”  
  
His eyes adjust. His dad and his manager are at the end of his bed; both have rolled their shoulders back and stuck their hands in their pockets, fixing him with strained smiles. Skwisgaar is sitting at his side, tapping out a melody into the top of his hand. His mother is smothering him.   
  
“ **_Mooooooom stooooop_ ** ,” Nathan grumbles, half-heartedly swatting her off. “You’re embarrassing me in front of Cranston.”  
  
His manager crumbles. “Wh...You _KNOW_ my name.”  
  
As consciousness returns, so does the pulse of pain in Nathan’s shoulder. Ah. Right. Fuck. He glances at Skwisgaar. His hair is wrapped in a messy bun and exhaustion colors his face like eyeblack. The corner of his mouth raises in a weak smile.  
  
“You cames back,” he murmurs. Nathan is too tired to figure out what emotion Skwisgaar’s voice lures out of the deepest parts of him. He shrugs. **AaaAAAaaa.** Still a bad idea.  
  
A severe-looking blonde woman pokes her head into the room and then enters.  
  
“Good to see you up and at-em, big guy.” The woman’s heavy southern accent is a strange comfort. “I’m Dr. King. I pulled that dang knife out of you and gotcha all stitched up.”  
  
“Cool,” Nathan says.  
  
She scans the room. “Is now a good time to—”  
  
“Yes,” the manager interrupts, and locks eyes with Skwisgaar. “You could use a break. Why don’t you let me buy you a cup of coffee?”  
  
“Ams fine,” is Skwisgaar’s blunt reply. His hand envelopes Nathan’s. Dr. King runs her tongue across her teeth and cuts her eyes at the manager.  
  
“Skwisgaar.” The manager angles out to the hallway. His tone says This Is Not A Suggestion. “Let’s take a walk.”  
  
Skwisgaar takes such a deep inhale it seems as though he were trying to fill his entire body. Something dims in him as he rises to his feet and follows the manager out.  
  
Dr. King reads Nathan’s chart.  
  
“This type of injury has a lot of potential complications,” she says. “That knife could have torn through your rotator cuff. It could have hit a major artery. You could have lost all motion in your arm.”  
  
“And?” His mom holds his neck in a vice-grip.  
  
Dr. King smiles. “And he’s fine.”  
  
His dad covers his eyes with his palm. His mom wails.  
  
“It’s incredible,” Dr. King continues. “There’s no bone damage. No muscle damage. No nerve damage. I’d like to sign you up for a couple weeks of physical therapy but to be honest? For this type of injury? This is the best-case scenario.”  
  
Nathan touches the top of his shoulder.  
  
“The dang thing went right in and came right out,” Dr. King says. “In a couple years you won’t even know it was there. You’re a lucky guy.”  
  
“I _feel_ lucky,” Nathan says, fingers climbing back to graze the massive gauze pad.  
  
The manager and Skwisgaar re-enter. Skwisgaar’s fingers are wrapped around an iced coffee the size of his head. He sinks back into his seat, sucking at the straw.  
  
“You’re such a great patient you’re ready to be discharged,” Dr. King continues. “We’ll have you out of here _well_ before your gig on Tuesday.”  
  
Memory slugs Nathan in the jaw.  
  
“ **_Denise!_ ** ” he blurts.  
  
The manager closes his eyes and sighs, “My name is _Charles…_ ”  
  
“No, she was a nurse.” He fumbles for the notepad and pen on his bedside tray, which Skwisgaar pushes into his direction. He grips the pen with his whole fist. “I said I’d give her something.”  
  
Every letter he writes sends a volt of pain up his arm.  
  
“Ow...ow...ow…”  
  
Dr. King grimaces. “I wouldn’t advise that, everything is still sensitive—”  
  
“Honey” says his mom, “maybe you shouldn’t—”  
  
“I’m **_DOING SOMETHING,”_ ** he exclaims, and keeps writing. “Ow...ow...ow…”  
  
“Baby…”  
  
“Let me **_do it mom!!!_ ** Ow…”  
  
He muscles out the message: _Denise, Thank you for fixing me when I got stabbed._ He scribbles out his signature and exhales with satisfaction. He holds the pen out to Skwisgaar.  
  
“Sign this.”  
  
Skwisgaar squints. “Whys?”  
  
“ **_Just do it, Skwisgaar!_ ** ”  
  
“Alrights, alrights, fines!”  
  
He takes the pen and brands his name across the cheap paper in an elegant loop. When he finishes, Nathan tears the sheet free and extends it to Dr. King.  
  
“Give this to Denise,” he says. “Denise the nurse. She’s tall, and she has hair…”  
  
“I know Denise,” Dr. King assures and slips the paper into her jacket pocket. “I’ll make sure she gets this.”  
  
Nathan isn’t the best at reading sincerity. But something about this doctor tells him she is incapable of bullshitting. He nods and settles back into the bed. He winces. Ow.  
  
Skwisgaar’s hand finds Nathan’s once more. 

  
\---

  
  
Nathan’s bedroom is too small.  
  
Which doesn’t make sense? The room is the same size it’s always been. He slept in this room a few weeks ago when he was too drunk to drive after Uncle Jimmy’s retirement party. It was fine then. But now it isn’t.  
  
It was dusk when he was at last released. When he was discharged from the hospital, **hours** later than he thought he would be, his mom refused to let him return to his apartment. (“What kind of mother would I be? If I let you go back to that filth house? That house of filth?”) Skwisgaar was part of the collateral damage. His dad drove their crappy sedan to the house, and his mom made up the pull-out in the basement.  
  
Nathan sits up, breathing a little easier when he is upright. The room he’d existed in for most of his time on the planet was relatively untouched. Posters had been delicately removed and remounted in frames. The bureau stored spare blankets instead of his workout gear. Boxes of Christmas decorations were stacked underneath the air conditioner. It was unfair of him to be upset that a space he no longer wanted had been put to better use. But logic did not cancel out illogical hurt.  
  
He pulls on his robe and goes downstairs.  
  
A patriotic banner entwines the banister, a Fourth of July leftover that would remain until at least Labor Day. His mom’s home holiday decor had a set, unbreakable timeline. His fingers skim the underside of family photos as he moves toward the kitchen. He checks the fridge out of habit, though he is not hungry. The suction of the fridge door reminds him of a long-forgotten angst he cannot fully recall but fully _feels_. A self-conscious clench in his guts, a slash of worry across the back of his neck. He holds his hand over his stomach. Waits. Goes into the basement.  
  
Nathan has lived with Skwisgaar long enough to know he sleeps in the nude. But out of some polite deference to Nathan’s parents, he has made an exception. He’s wearing one of Nathan’s old practice jerseys, the cropped mesh made even shorter by his exquisitely long torso. As he descends the steps, Nathan fixates on the tuft of downy blond hair climbing like ivy above the elastic waist band of his boxers.  
  
“Still up?” He asks dumbly, and Skwisgaar nods.  
  
“Couldn’ts sleep.”  
  
Nathan tugs all of his hair over one shoulder. He lowers himself to join Skwisgaar on the pull-out. “Me neither. Obviously.”  
  
From his position he sees Skwisgaar has woven several small braids into his hair, and is quick at work at another.  
  
He flicks a braid. “That’s a good look.”  
  
“Oh ha ha.” He combs his fingers through his roots and wiggles all the braids loose. “I didn’ts has my guitar so I hads to **_eeeeeuuuyyyyyygggghhhh_ ** makes due.”  
  
All of the basement lights are switched off. The light of the stark-white bulbs of the streetlights cuts through the basement windows and cuts shadows across Skwisgaar’s features. If Nathan squints he can convince himself it’s the moonlight.  
  
“Hey,” he says. “I never got a chance to thank you, for all of the.” He gestures vaguely. “You were a real rock star today.”  
  
Skwisgaar flips his hair with a preening, self-deprecating smile. “Ams a rock star _every_ days.”  
  
“I’m serious. You went above and beyond. I mean, packing the Game Boy? That was so clutch!”  
  
“Ha ha I thoughts you’d likes dat.”  
  
“Yeah I did.”  
  
“Ja.”  
  
Their self-conscious, breathy chuckling fades. Nathan doesn’t know where to put his hands.   
  
“But really,” he says at last. “Thank you. For everything.”  
  
Skwisgaar pinches his lower lip between his teeth and exhales.   
  
“You’re welcomes.”  
  
Nathan feels the moment stretch taffy-life between them. Skwisgaar turns away. He knows Skwissgar is wrestling down Something Else he wants to say, the Thing Nathan knows he’s been fighting since the moment the knife broke his skin. Nathan knows he can give him an out. He can go back upstairs, and go to sleep, and never discuss what happened tonight ever again. He knows a part of Skwisgaar longs for this. _He_ longs for this _._ But a bigger part of him is compelled to stay. So he does.  
  
“Dis wasn’t de foirst time I hads to do somet’ings like dis,” Skwisgaar offers.  
  
Nathan smirks. “What, you mean you’ve been in a band where one guy stabbed another guy for basically no reason?”  
  
“Nathan…”  
  
“ Probably should have mentioned that before, bro, you could have saved us a lot of time.”  
  
“Nathan _please_ .”  
  
His voice is heartbreakingly quiet. Nathan withdraws. He gestures for Skwisgaar to continue.  
  
“Growing ups, it was just mes and my moms.” A dark shadow shades his expression. “ _For de most parts_ . And sometimes.” He polishes his teeth with his tongue. “...t’ings would happen, and she neededs someone to takes care of hers.”  
  
His eyes become distant.  
  
“Ands de only poirson who coulds take cares of her was mes.”  
  
Nathan knows he should touch him, should say something, to let him know he’s listening. But his throat is closed, and his hands are cemented to his thighs.  
  
“I used to sits wif my moms,” Skwisgaar says, and lightly bumps his shoulder to Nathan’s. “De same ways I sat wif you. And all de doctors and nurses and dildoes volunteers woulds say de same t’ings. Dat I shoulds _takes a breaks_ . Dat I _deserved its_ . Pft.”  
  
He scrubs his palm across his face.  
  
“ **_Nones_ ** of dem gots that I _couldn’ts_ takes a breaks. I _couldn’ts_ leave her. Because whats if I _dids_ and.”  
  
Nathan looks down. Skwisgaar’s hands are shaking.  
  
“And den de _one times_ I leaves I comes back and she’s gone?” He halves himself, pressing his forehead to his knees. “Beingks wif you, todays, at de hospital? It, ha ha, it broughts back some stuffs...”  
  
“Why did you put yourself through this?” Nathan chokes out. “Pickles could have taken me. The manager could have taken me. Fuck, man, I could have driven myself, honestly, I feel _fine._ ”  
  
“Because when it hits yous it’s goingks to **_hurt_ ** .” Skwisgaar lifts himself up, eyes steely. “I can’ts stop dat hurt. But I knows what dat hurt is like, and I thoughts...if I was _wif_ yous, I coulds.” He hesitates. His hand rises to his mouth. “Maybe I coulds make it hurt a littles less.”  
  
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”  
  
“I _wanteds_ to.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because it’s **_you_ ** , Nathan.” He sounds exasperated that he has to explain this, as if he could not have been more obvious if he tried. “ Ands I…”  
  
He’s looking at him, and he’s embarrassed, and he’s determined, and he’s soft, and his hand his cupping Nathan’s cheek.  
  
“...I _wants_ to takes care of yous.”  
  
A beat passes. Skwisgaar’s hair is a golden waterfall spilling over his undamaged shoulder. Nathan takes it in one fist, moves it back, and hooks his fingers beneath Skwisgaar’s chin.  
  
“You shores?” Skwisgaar murmurs, and Nathan nods as he draws him in, feels his lips fit against his own.  
  
It’s different than Nathan had imagined. Skwisgaar is gentler than he’d anticipated, more considerate, more delicate. He’s very careful about where he puts his hands. Nathan starts to lay him beneath him, wants to sink his full weight into him, and as he adjusts his ankle skims the cold metal bar at the outer reaches of the pull-out and  
  
 _his leg skims the cool side of the toilet. They’re on the bathroom floor. The bathmat is so moldy, and so gross, and so_ **_funny_ ** _he can’t stop laughing. Magnus can’t stop laughing. His hand is over Magnus’s mouth, and Magnus’s hand is over his mouth, they’re holding each other’s laughter in and they’re doing a bad job. Someone is banging on the locked door and they’re laughing so_ **_much_ ** _it’s so_ **_funny_ ** _. They vibrate into fits. Magnus’s palm is a warm mash against his teeth. But so is his against Magnus’s. They are a team. It’s so_ **_funny_ ** _. The person banging bangs louder and it’s so_ **_funny_ ** _it  
  
_ Skwisgaar is no longer kissing him.  
  
“Why did you stop?” he says. Or he _thinks_ he does. He made those words with his mouth, but the sound that emerged was _not_ his voice. It was rasping and hoarse. He reaches for his throat, as if there were some physical obstruction causing this error. He finds nothing. Which makes no sense because he’s fine? He’s fine. His chest rises and falls rapidly under his palm.  
  
“It’s okays,” Skwisgaar says, and it’s sweet but a little rehearsed. A sad fondness lights him from within. He smooths Nathan’s hair off his face and it’s wet—wait, why is his hair wet? Why is his face wet? Why...  
  
“I don’t know why this is happening.”  
  
Skwisgaar guides him into his chest.  
  
“I-I don’t know why I’m doing this.”  
  
Skwisgaar rubs his back, strokes his hair, presses his lips to the top of his head.   
  
“It’s okays,” he murmurs.  
  
“Wh- **_Why…_ ** ”  
  
Tomorrow his mother will make chocolate chip pancakes, and she will use syrup to draw a smiley face on the top of his stack. And tomorrow on the drive home Skwisgaar will oblige when Nathan asks him to park in an empty lot eight blocks from their apartment. And tomorrow Nathan will kiss the ends of Skwisgaar’s fingers and the centers of his palms and the blooms of veins on the inside of his wrists until those hands touch every inch of him with such protective tenderness Nathan will wonder how he ever felt as lost, as confused, as _betrayed_ as he did the night before.  
  
But Nathan isn’t there yet.  
  
“Why did he do that?” He wraps his arms around Skwisgaar’s waist and sobs brokenly into his chest. “I thought we were **_friends._ **”


End file.
